Argentine Film Festival at The Projector Thur 17 - Sat 19 Oct 2019

A Short History Of Film In Argentina: The Argentine film industry has historically been one of the three most developed in Latin American cinema, along with those produced in Mexico and Brazil.

Throughout the 20th century, film production in Argentina, supported by the State and by the work of a long list of directors and actors, became one of the major film industries in the Spanish-speaking world.

In 1930, Adiós Argentina became the first Argentine film to have a soundtrack. The film starred actresses such as Libertad Lamarque and Ada Cornaro who both debuted in the film.

Movietone arrived in 1933 and it allowed both voice and music in motion pictures. The first two Argentine cinematographic studios were created: Argentina Sono Film was founded by Ángel Mentasti; Lumitón was created by a partnership led by Enrique Susini, who was instrumental in the introduction of television to Argentina in 1951.

The film industry in Argentina reached a pinnacle in the late 1930s and 1940s when an average of forty-two films were produced annually.

Since the late 1950s a new generation of film directors took Argentine films to international film festivals. The first wave of such directors was Leopoldo Torre-Nilsson, who "explored aristocratic decadence",

In 1963, comedy films became to feature in Argentine cinema, and films such as Alias Flequillo in 1963 directed by Julio Saraceni starred comedians such as José Marrone. Las Aventuras del Capitán Piluso en el Castillo del Terror starred comedians such as Alberto Olmedo who appeared in the genre throughout the 1960s and 1970s appearing in 1967's El andador and other slap-stick comedies. Argentine film and TV was largely limited to light subjects in the perilous late 1970s.

Following a loosening of restrictions in 1980, muck-raking cinema began to make itself evident on the Argentine screen. Plunging head-long into subjects like corruption and impunity (without directly indicting those in power), Adolfo Aristarain's Tiempo de revancha ("Time for Revenge", 1981), Fernando Ayala's Plata dulce ("Sweet Money," 1982) and Eduardo Calcagno's Los enemigos ("The Enemies," 1983) took hard looks at labor rights abuses, corporate corruption and the day's prevailing climate of fear at a time when doing so was often perilous.

A new era in Argentine cinema started after the arrival of democracy in 1983; besides a few memorable exceptions like Alejandro Doria's family comedy Esperando la carroza ("Waiting for the Hearse", 1985), the era saw a marked decline in the popularity of slapstick comedies towards films with more serious undertones and subject matter.

Later in the 1990s, the focus began to shift towards Argentina's mounting social problems, such as rising homelessness and crime.

Credit : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinema_of_Argentina